October 2022 blog post: Monthly updates including Sif Savery's Tales of Zale - Flickering Lights (which I did the audio mixing for), a feature celebrating Roland's 50th anniversary, BTTB horns finished + an exclusive Jabun ambient live jam on Patreon!

October 2022 blog and Patreon post: Monthly updates including Sif Savery's Tales of Zale - Flickering Lights (which I did the audio mixing for), a feature celebrating Roland's 50th anniversary, BTTB horns finished + Another exclusive Jabun ambient live jam for the $10 patrons and more!

Hi everyone and hope you've been having a good September. It's been another busy month here, and I'm so stoked to finally be able to share this with you (the video below) so let's get straight to that!

Following last month's trailer and after a tonne of hard work from a plethora of people, I'm super pleased to finally be able to share with you Sif Savery's Tales of Zale - Flickering Lights, an animated short film! I've been working on the audio mixing (and some sound design) for this for a few months now, but when Sif says that we were working on it right up until the release time, she REALLY means it! I think I sent off the final cut of the audio about 6 hours before the release, and it was approved less than 5 hours before the premier too! Crazy work schedules, but I think you'll be able to appreciate how much went into it! A huge thanks to Sif for having me on the project again, and a big shoutout to Matthew (the composer) and Patrick (the foley artist / sound designer) who I've been working with closely over the last few months! Check out Tales of Zale - Flickering Lights!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DLbgOeE2_w

Also, Sif's got some cool merch on sale if you're interested too! The link's in the video description on YouTube, and I just had to pick up the production artbook as a memento. Go check it out!

Another cool little bit of news following from last month, in celebration of their 50th Anniversary, the music tech company Roland asked for people to send in their stories of how Roland products have enriched their musical journey, and this month they've published the story I sent in! The editing is a little janky, but it tells the story of how my twin (after already gifting me my trusty Tr-08 a Christmas or two prior) gifted me a vintage Tr-505 drum machine for my 29th birthday: my first piece of gear older than I am! The article also features links to music by Better Than The Book and Jabun and it's an honour to be featured on among the greats on the Roland site! Check out "Nick Standing -  Welcome to the Club" below:  

Roland & Me feature: https://articles.roland.com/roland-and-me/

As a token of their thanks for sending in a story (and it being picked), I also have an awesome 808 hat and 50th anniversary T-shirt waiting for me too! Thanks so much for all the inspiration and the fun gifts Roland!

Onto other updates for the month, after such a busy and important project, it finally felt like a good (and safe) time to replace the cable on my main studio headphones. I've been using these since before I was recording Two Years On waaay back in 2015 and they've been run over by chairs, caught on stands etc... so much that they were very much in need of dire repairing. All good now though and hopefully this new cable holds for a long time. Onto more musical updates, I'm super happy to announce that horns have finally been completed for the upcoming Better Than The Book album (and more). It's just some extra acoustic stuff (including cello) left to do hopefully in the coming month, then it's finally (hopefully) time to start laying down vocals! It's been a long time working on this, and there's still much more to do. Meanwhile I've been busy prepping some new stuff with World Beyond, as well as another Jabun EP coming soon, so it's not going to be too long until the next project reaches the end of the pipeline! Exciting and busy times ahead!

Finally as usual for the month, let's take some time to reflect on and set some goals! Here's what I set last time:

1) Finish Tales of Zale Episode 3
2) Finish the final Better Than The Book horn part
3) Replace the cable on my studio headphones (if possible)

And done, done, done! Not really much to comment on those! Horray! With that said, as mentioned above already I do have some plans for what I'd like to get done this month so let's see if I can do the following:

1) Finish the masters for the upcoming Jabun EP
2) Finish melodica parts for Better Than The Book
3) Finish cellos for Better Than The Book

As well as keeping on top of the usual admin stuff. It's going to be tricky depending on how much other stuff I have going on this month, but we'll see how it goes!

That about wraps things up for this time, unless you're a $10 patron in which case you have another exclusive Jabun live ambient synth jam to look forward to. I'm hoping next month will be a bit more relaxed and restful, but we shall see what it brings! Until then, I hope you have a great October to come and thanks as always for supporting my music however you can and especially on Patreon! Take care and all the best!

All Patreon supporters will recieve all past rewards for your tier when you sign up so check out the archives to see everything you can catch up on and hope to see you there!

$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/71688981
$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/71688980
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding